ESC407 – Classroom Technologies

Collaboration is easier than ever before with technology. There are many Web2.0 sites and platforms which teachers and students can take advantage of to help with collaboration such as:

• Wikis – A online collaborative site, where anyone is able to edit the content on pages, creating new content, reworking existing ideas and remove outdated or incorrect information. The best example of a collaborative Wiki, is Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been made by thousands of people all around the world contributing, editing and reviewing information that people have posted. Whilst not suitable for academic referencing, it has allowed people all over the world to access information on just about any topic they can think of, for free and at the click of a button.
• Google Docs – A free online document editing application, that allows you to quickly and easily share your document with anyone else in the world. Many people can be editing the same Google Doc at the same time, leaving comments for suggested changes, adding new ideas and finishing each others sentences.
  Google Docs could also be used for class notes, with students taking turns to take notes during the lesson, which can then be shared with other classmates, helping with revision and understanding what was taught.
• Blogs – A blog is collaborative in the way you can post what you’re feeling or interested in and anyone can respond with their comments, ideas and suggestions. You as the author can then in turn respond to their comments, or re-edit your post to incorporate their new ideas, further refining your work.

Technology can also be used to collaborate with other schools in your local area, or on the other side of the world. This provides opportunities for students to engage with individuals from a variety of backgrounds, cultural and interest areas. A teacher may choose to encourage students to work on class tasks and assignments with students from other schools via online collaborative platforms and apps, such as Google Docs, video conferencing, wikis and blogs.
Using technology for collaboration also means just because a student may be away sick or on holidays, doesn’t mean they miss out on class work, as it can all be accessed online, helping to keep them in touch with classmates and ensuring they don’t fall behind in their course work.

TPACK could be used in developing my classroom technology skills by allowing me to work with it like a checklist, ensuring what I’m teaching is using the right Technology, with the appropriate Pedagogy, to convey the selected Content for the lesson. If when I’m going through this checklist, something doesn’t fit or work, that would indicate to me, that I need to find something else for that section, to ensure all three components work together to delivery the best lesson for my students.
At the moment I think I’m sitting within the TCK section of the TPACK diagram, as I feel I’m comfortable with the technology and reasonable confident with the content, but still have to work on developing my pedagogical skills, which I’m hoping will come with my upcoming practical placements and further studies this year.
If I had to mark a spot on the diagram, it would definitely have to be closer to the TK (Technological Knowledge) area as that is where my current job lies, although I do have experience and skills with lots of the content required for my teaching area (TAS, IT).

Lesson planning is still a skill I’m very new at learning and I am slightly worried that I will forget to cover certain syllabus requirements in my lessons, although hopefully my workmates will be available to give me guidance on where I might be going off track, to ensure I give the best possible lessons for my students.
I am also worried about finding appropriate resources for my lessons, and ensuring my classroom is an engaging and fun learning environment for my students. I believe a pleasant, inviting classroom is paramount to the success of any teacher in keeping their students engaged and learning, and hope I’m able to deliver this experience to all my students.

Banning mobile phones and other portable devices in schools has been from my observations in the school I work in, a difficult policy to enforce. In the era of BYO, many students (often with teacher permission and encouragement) are now using their mobile phones/iPods and cameras for video and audio recording, note taking, checking school emails and studying. An outright ban on these devices only encourages students to break the rules and unless every staff member is on-board with the policy, it is doomed to fail.
A better option is to specify what is and isn’t appropriate use of these devices in school, with clear consequences for inappropriate use, eg. using the device for recording video and audio for a class presentation or video task is appropriate, whilst secretly photographing classmates in awkward situations and sharing on social media is inappropriate.
This way, the students are aware of what they can and can’t do, with the responsibility for their actions placed on the student. Sometimes I feel schools have rules in place for the sake of having rules, which doesn’t help the student to think for themselves before doing something. Allowing room for common sense and social norms to take place in a students thought process, helps to create a more independent thinker, who doesn’t just follow the rules because someone says so.

An ethical issue I think I’ll be facing in my teaching career is Illegal software downloading/piracy.

One main suite of software used within TAS is the Adobe Creative Suite of applications, which includes Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver and Premiere Pro.
As this software normally costs several hundred dollars to license per user, many schools are looking at using open-source alternatives, especially since Adobe moved to using a yearly subscription based licensing model.
However many students are choosing to illegally download and crack (obtain a product key and activate the software) the software on their own BYO machines, as they wish to use industry standard applications for their learning, without handing over several hundreds dollars. Most students would be prepared to pay for software if it was priced within their price bracket, and wasn’t a continuous cost (Gan & Koh, 2006, p. 647).

Whilst there isn’t a lot that schools can do to combat this practice especially since BYO devices are not school property, schools can ensure they educate their students about the relevant piracy laws and consequences for breaking them, including illegally downloading software (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 19).
Schools can try and make this software cheaper by purchasing class lab licensing instead, which could be shared across multiple year groups, reducing the number of license required and sharing the cost across multiple students (Gan & Koh, 2006).

References

Some web-based activities and tools I could use in my classroom are:

• A Google A Day (http://www.agoogleaday.com/) – This site could be used to help students to learn how to search using Google better, by providing them with situations which they may not normally search for. This site could be used a quick 5 min task at the start of each lesson, to get students online and thinking.
• Trimble Sketchup (http://www.sketchup.com/) – Sketchup could be used in Yr 7/8 Tech Mandatory, allowing students to create 3D models of their designs, allowing them to be more creative with their designs that possible with pencil and paper. It also allows students who may not be good paper based designs to better express their ideas and designs.
• InstaGrok (http://www.instagrok.com/) – This site provides students with a visual representation of their search term, helping to highlight other connected terms, which the student can then choose to explore, whilst still being linked back to their original results. This could be used as part of a research gathering activity with students, helping them to better refine their search terms, to gather only relevant information.

One of the issues I can see impacting the integration of technology in my lessons is Accessing sites with inappropriate materials.
Based on my experience with school internet filtering software, there is often lots of sites which accidentally get classified as malicious or blocked for no reason, thus making it hard for you and your students to access.
As a teacher, I’ll need to make sure to check access to key sites I need my students to use are available before staring my lessons, so I have time to get it unblocked or access granted so as not to impact on my teaching and my students learning.
I know the NSW DET offers a service where the teacher is able to check the URL of a site to see if it’s accessible by their students, and if not, easily submit it for approval.

I’ll need to invest more time in learning how to provide custom Google Search engines for my students using Google Custom Search (http://www.teachthought.com/uncategorized/how-to-create-a-custom-search-engine-for-your-students/), as I see this as being a useful feature for my students by requiring them to still search for the right pages, whilst at the same time having some control over the content that will be accessible, through sites and keyword restrictions.

Some Web2.0 tools I could use in my lessons are:

• Blogger – Students can use this site to create their own blogs, showcasing their learning throughout the course and commenting on other students work.
• Voki – Students can use this to create computerised speaking animations for their blog, to help find new, creative ways of describing their ideas and conveying their understanding.
• Prezi – Allows students to present their information and content in a more engaging and interesting manner that possible with PowerPoint. Prezi allows you to see the whole picture, before zooming into different areas of interest for more detailed analysis.

My work has an AUP, but it hasn’t been updated to take into account social media sites and services, as these have been covered by a separate social media policy. I’m not sure if most of the staff and students are aware of the AUP, even though they all technically have accepted it by using the on-site wireless network and internet connection. Further remind staff and students of the AUP throughout the year would probably help to ensure school resources were only being used for appropriate purposes.

Cyberbulling is a major problem today in the 21st century, and it’s mainly due to students being unaware of the impact their actions online can have on other individuals. Better education of the consequences of cyberbulling should be undertaken in schools, such as the Outreach programs that were offered by ACMA, as well as other current providers such as Optus Digital Thumbprint – http://www.digitalthumbprint.com.au/
Whilst education of students can help, teachers can also help by keeping an eye on their class, not only in person but as much as possible in the online space. In this way, teachers should be able to help prevent many cyberbulling cases from escalating. Whilst this may take some extra time for the teacher, it could be integrated into the school’s pastoral care/student well-being program.

Integrating technology into the classroom and teaching allows teachers to deliver the content for their subject in more creative and engaging ways than previously possible, such as giving students a virtual tour of a data centre, something which would not have been possibly to do in person. Another example is virtual excursions to places such as Antarctica, Rome and Pompeii. These experiences help to engage students by providing real life examples of what they’ve been learning in the classroom (Tuthill & Klemm, 2002, p. 453).

I see BYOD as being a challenge to the successful integration of technology in the classroom, as the teacher now has to ensure their lesson will work across multiple devices, platforms and configurations. This extra demand on the teacher could encourage some teachers to abandon technology integration as they may see this extra work not worth it, despite the rewards for students.
A benefit for technology integration is allowing students the opportunity to explore what other features their device may be capable of other than playing games and surfing the internet eg. Some students may not have otherwise explored the video editing software on their device, unless required to by their class teacher.
Utilising these new features, the students will be able to find new ways to creatively present their work, collaborate with their friends and engage in their learning.

References:

My focus area is IT, specifically Information and Software Technology; and Tech Mandatory in Yr 7-10. I’m also interested in learning to teach the Information and Digital Technology TVET curriculum in Yr 11 and 12, but haven’t had much chance to look at this in detail yet. Both of my focus areas are heavily reliant on the integration of ICT into the curriculum, especially IST.

From my experience in my current job as IT Admin in a secondary school, I’d be inclined to use laptop computers in the classroom, either Mac or Windows (I’m not fussed as am familiar with both environments), iPads could also be used for certain situations if the school had some shared iPads. I’m not inclined to use iPads as the students primary device of choice in the classroom as they can be quite limiting in terms of software available. It can also be a challenge getting the data off the iPad, such as transferring large video files without a computer to use.

In terms of software –

• Google Docs/Microsoft Word – Useful for students to create reports, document their work and taking class notes. Could also be used in combination with Google Sheets/Excel, Google Slides/PowerPoint and OneNote/EverNote.
• Adobe Dreamweaver – Useful for introducing students to website creation, as it allows them to visually make changes to a site and see the relevant changes in the code; and vice versa. If Dreamweaver wasn’t available, we could still code a basic website in Notepad (Win) or TextEdit (Mac).
• Adobe Flash – Used for creating animations, animated banners for websites, games etc. Could also use Blender as this if free and open source, whereas Flash isn’t.
• Audacity – Useful for sound editing, can be used to record, edit and manipulate any audio, before mixing them together for exporting to use in movies, animations etc.
• iMovie/Movie Maker – Used for creating videos, using green-screen tech etc. Could be used in conjunction with Audacity and Blender to create an animated movie.

I’m interested to get out into the classroom and see what else is being used, as well as having time to play around with software and experiment with what’s possible, as I don’t have a lot of free time currently with work and uni study to just spend hours playing around.

From my experiences with IWB’s in the secondary school I currently work in as IT Administrator, the IWB’s are rarely used for their interactive components, with most being used as digital projector screens or not at all. With our recent change to Macbooks, we decided not to install the SMART software onto these devices, partly because the IWB’s were not used by teachers so the software wasn’t required; and also because the licensing costs for the software had changed from a perpetual license to an annual subscription fee, and it was going to cost $10,000+ to license the software for all our teachers, which was not something we were prepared to even consider paying.

I agree with the outcomes found by Jan Lacina in her essay (Lacina, 2009), were she found “IWBs are an expensive form of technology–and there is no strong scientific research showing that students who are instructed by a teacher using an IWB have higher achievement.” as this reflects what I’ve seen for the last 8 years in my job. Many teachers initially were willing to give IWB’s a go, but found the extra demand on their time to create interactive lessons, along with software that wasn’t 100% reliable and limited class time, meant many teachers concluded it was not worth the time, especially when they weren’t seeing any changes in students learning outcomes.
Most teachers agreed the interactive components would probably have worked better in a primary school environment where the teacher has the same class all day, but the novelty factor of the IWB’s didn’t last long with  secondary students, and some teachers found their classes became quite disrupted with students needing to come up to the board to “interact” before going back to their seat. As the board only allowed for 1 person to “interact” with it at a time, it didn’t work well when you had large classes of 30 students. This consensus was also reflected by Lacina in her essay “Teachers who teach large classes may want to reconsider using only whole-class instruction, since much instructional time is wasted as students interact one-on-one with the board.”

The main KLAs who did find the IWBs slightly useful were Creative Arts, LOTE and Science, but agreed the same outcome could be achieved by using a digital projector and whiteboard. An example is Visual Arts, where a painting could be projected onto the IWB and the teacher can then highlight certain techniques and styles within the painting using the IWB. However this could also be achieved for significantly less cost by using a whiteboard instead of the IWB, plus the whiteboard can be used on any device and didn’t need to have hardware specific software installed to be able to be used.

The study by Winzenried, A., Dalgarno, B., & Tinkler, J. (2010), also furthers to validate my opinion of IWBs with many of the teachers studied only using the IWBs for projecting Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Internet site and videos, all of which could have been done with just a digital projector and no IWB, saving the school and teacher, both time and money.

As Lacina said in her concluding sentence “What may be more important for students are teachers who initiate inquiry-based learning classrooms, and schools that provide smaller class sizes to allow more individualised interaction between teachers and students.”(Lacina, 2009). I agree with this as I feel the school’s limited time, resources and money could be better spent, this has since been the school’s position with no IWBs installed in our recent classroom refurbishments. So far no complaints from teachers about missing their IWB…

References:

I’ve found reading about the Connectivism theory interesting, as it’s helped me to see how Connnectivism places technology as one of the components of learning, an essential cog in the learning machine.

From my experience, trying to learn without using technology and connections/networks in the modern world would be very difficult. In today’s world, being able to see how things connect and relate to each other is just as important as knowing how something works or is used. Learning is no longer done in isolation, but as part of a wider collective of people, whether that’s in the classroom using collaborative software to allow students to work on a task together, or a uni student completing a subject online, with no face-to-face contact. In each situation, technology forms part of the learning process and is no longer just a tool used to access information, it’s now embedded in the learning process, helping you to find new information and ideas, manipulate this information and form new understandings, which can then be transmitted globally for anyone else to critique, use, manipulate and build upon.

Connectivism is a modern learning theory, that encompasses 21st century learning practices, tools and networks. Connectivism is about making connections between yourself and others, as well as between what you know and what you’re learning about. Technology is the key, as it allows us to form connections not previously possible such as inter-country relationships, as well as sending and retrieving information instantly. With technological inventions such as Google and Wikipedia, it’s now possible for anyone in the world to lookup information on just about anything they want. No longer is this information only accessible in books or printed journals, with these connections, anyone is able to further their own learning, understanding and contribute to the global knowledge database. As a teacher our role now has a focus on using these technological tools to help our students find the information they’re after, we’re no longer the keeper of the keys to the information kingdom.

References:

In today’s modern Internet era, the device is becoming less and less important, as many website and services are now being made easily available on any device. All you need is a web browser and you’re set to go. Whilst some websites still require specific devices to work, mainly sites requiring Adobe Flash Player (running on Windows, Mac & Linux only), many are moving towards HTML5 standards to enable their users to access their site, on any device they choose, at any time.

A device you could use in the classroom is an iPad. iPads have been around since 2010 and enable students to interact with content more easily than ever before. There are thousands of apps for the iPad on the Apple App Store that students can use to learn about anything from how the human body works (The Human Body) to what stars they can see in the night sky tonight (Star Walk HD).
Whilst iPads are extremely useful, one major disadvantage for educational use is the lack of support for Adobe Flash Player on iPads. Adobe Flash Player is used by many sites and applications to offer interactive animations or content, such as additional resources that come with a textbook/eBook. The lack of support for Flash Player means these resources can’t be accessed by the iPad, requiring teachers and students to either find alternative resources or use a desktop/laptop computer for access instead.
Despite this, iPads have changed the way students interact with the subject content. No longer are they simply reading the textbook or watching the video, but they can now manipulate the data and interact with their learning in a more hands on, kinetic manner than previously possible in the classroom.

When Apple first designed the iPad, it wasn’t initially designed with the educational market in mind, but over time Apple and other developers have created apps and added functionality to the iPad which have allowed it to more easily be used in educational environments. Some features I’ve found and tried include:

• iTunesU – A dedicated place on the iTunes Store where anyone is able to access university podcasts, lectures and other materials on a wide variety of subjects.
• iOS 9.3 – This update will bring classrooms and multiple user profiles to iPads in education, allowing teachers to create and manage a class of iPads as well as helping to better manage shared iPads by allowing individual profiles on the iPad, helping students keep their works and settings, separate from other students.
• iCloud Drive – Allows you to store your Pages, Keynote and Numbers files in the cloud. This allows you to easily invite other users to contribute to your works as well as ensuring it is backed up, helping to prevent headaches if your iPad fails, as well as keeping your document in sync if you use multiple Mac devices (such as iPad and Mac laptop).

All of these features help to position the iPad as a more affordable device in the educational environment. The ease at which many students are able to use the iPad also helps to strengthen it’s affordability for educational use, by reducing the learning curve required by students to use the device, allowing the teacher to focus more of their  time on the content of the lesson, rather than how to do something.

Word processing is possible on an iPad using the free Pages app from Apple, although learning touch typing is a bit more challenging as there is no tactile feedback if using the on-screen keyboard as students won’t be able to feel the little bump present on the F and J keys.
Students should be starting to learn word processing skills from mid Primary, along with learning how to touch type. These skills will help them throughout their schooling and adult lives, by allowing them to quickly and easily write anything they need, whether it’s in a word document, email, social media post, online forum or website. By learning to touch type, students will be able to more easily and quickly turn their thoughts and ideas into words, ready for manipulation and transmission, as compared to one fingered typing (Lam & Pennington, 1995, pp. 75-79).

Whilst word processing is useful, students still need to be able to handwrite, as many times a electronic device may not be a viable option for recording their thoughts or ideas. Whilst handwriting is no longer as important as in the past and word processing has contributed to a rapid decline in handwriting skills, many aspects of school are still handwritten, such as the HSC and school exams. You may have all the best ideas in the world and have memorised the perfect essay, but if you can’t get all this information down onto the paper in a logical and understandable manner in the time limit allowed, then you’ll fail. Handwriting is still an essential skill for all students to master.
With word processing, students no longer need to be able to properly plan their work, as word processing has allowed them to easily and quickly rearrange their entire assessment task in a matter of minutes, with no typing required. Some could view this as both an advantage and disadvantage (Cochran-Smith, 1991, pp. 107-111).
Another disadvantage of word processing, is it has enabled students to more easily plagiarise and copy and paste information for their assessments than before.
Auto correction of spelling is also a problem as it doesn’t allow the students the chance to recognise and fix the spelling mistakes themselves, thus not teaching them the correct spelling and hindering their learning of the right way to spell words.

References:

I found this weeks reading and videos interesting as they explored different areas of technology in the classroom and the reasoning behind why some technology is here and others aren’t.

As Margaret said in her journal article, technology in the classroom is most likely to be successful and remain used long term, once it has become part of the informal and commercial environments. This would explain why schools who are undertaking BYOD programs are generally asking for Mac or Windows devices over tablets, as tablets are still evolving and changing and have yet to fully immerse themselves in the commercial sector.

Whilst schools are integrating IT into their curriculum’s and lessons, with research showing us there is benefits to students learning to be made by doing so, many schools and teachers are only using IT for selected tasks and IT is yet to be fully integrated into the curriculum. This may be because teachers find the issue of classroom control more challenging with technology in the room, whilst some may not be convinced of the benefits to students learning in the classroom. Others may have seen technology lead to a decrease in student performance and therefore have made a conscious decisions to partially exclude technology from their learning environments.

In this 21st century world we live in, teachers who continue to deny ICT any part in their lessons are refusing to change with the times and are putting their students at a disadvantage. In the rapidly changing world, our students need to be able to quickly and easily adapt to any form of ICT they may encounter both at school and later on in life in the workplace. With technology rapidly changing and replacing many traditional jobs, being competent and confident with the use of ICT is helping our students in their future careers.

The role of the teacher in the 21st century classroom, is less of the traditional knowledge delivery and more of a guide and assistant, pointing students in the right direction to obtain the information they are after, helping students work out what are/aren’t good academic sources for information and training their students to be life long learners. Through continued PD teachers are able to improve their integration of ICT into their lessons, helping to engage with students and create 21st century learners.

The videos on the schools and parents choosing the no technology route were interesting, providing a juxtaposition to the above arguments for needing technology in the classroom. Whilst ICT in the classroom is great, there are some situations that are better taught first hand, rather than through technology. Being a effective teacher, will require us to develop the skills to determine when we should and shouldn’t use technology, as using technology in the classroom just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

I agree with Greg Whitby’s observation that focusing on technology is a waste of time, if you don’t have good quality teachers behind the technology to actually make it work and be useful in the learning process.
Too much today we focus on technology as the answer to everything and all our problems, when in fact it’s often not the answer but only part of the solution. Good technology will only help in students learning if students are guided through the learning process by good teachers. Technology can often hinder students in their learning as they may become more easily distracted, access incorrect or invalid information and expose themselves to risky social situations for which they’re not prepared.

An example of the above is the Federal Governments 1-to-1 laptop program that was implemented several years ago. Whilst the idea of giving students across the country access to technology sounds great, the actual implementation varied greatly, with many teachers ill-prepared to handle this new technology in the classroom and many schools without adequate infrastructure to cope with the influx of devices. Suddenly almost overnight you had teachers going from using textbooks, pen and paper to online learning environments, collaborative learning and digital media. For some teachers this was too much to handle, they simple shutdown and refused to adapt, whilst other teachers embraced the change, updating their resources, changing assessment tasks and adapting their teaching style.

As Punya Mishra said in his keynote, “Re-purposing a technology makes it an education technology”. Simply placing technology in the classroom doesn’t suddenly make it useful for education or mean it will be used for this purpose. I’ve seen many students using their 1-to-1 laptops for playing games and watching movies in class, when they should have been learning.

Again, Punya said “Creativity is the only solution, simple solutions no longer work” and I agree, simply asking students to do the same old assessment tasks using the new technology is not engaging for the students and is wasting the opportunity presented by the new technology. By asking students to come up with new ways of presenting the information you want, using the technology and skills they have, will lead to a better learning experience and outcomes for both teacher and student. The student will be more engaged in the learning process and the teacher may well be challenged to learn a new skill as well, plus the assessment will be more exciting to mark as each student will likely have presented the information in different ways or styles.

As Punya said “The more technology changes, the more things stay the same”. Simply adding technology to existing ways we teach and learn is not truly making the most of the technology and opportunity we’re presented with. Instead we should adapt and change our teaching and learning, to incorporate the technology, adapting it for our educational needs and finding the best way we can us it to help further our students learning and help equip them for their lives ahead in 21st century society.

Hi

My name is Nick and I live in Southern Sydney. I’m currently studying a BEd (Secondary) in TAS (IT) whilst working part-time as an IT Admin at a local catholic high school.

Working in the high school I’m able to see many different forms of technology in the classroom, allowing me to see what actually does and doesn’t work in the classroom. Our Yr 7-8 students have been using iPads for the last few years, although we’re switching to laptops for 7-12 next year as we found too many issues with iPads and internet access through the proxy solution mandated by the Catholic Education Office. Every classroom has a SMARTBoard (Interactive Whiteboard) installed, but they’re generally not used as it takes extra time to make a lesson that takes advantage of the “smart” capability of the SMARTBoard and our new classrooms we’re getting built next year will not have SMARTBoards installed

Our staff all have MacBooks which they connect to data projectors in the classroom if needed. We’re heavily using Google Apps within our school, especially Google Drive and Docs. Teacher Dashboard is an excellent addition to Google Apps and something I would consider a must for any school using Google Apps as it helps teachers to easily see what work they’re students have done, as well as sending new resources to students, emailing class groups etc. We also use ClickView for most storing free-to-air TV shows and content which teachers and students can then access online from anywhere, anytime.

Although I haven’t yet done my first prac, I figured I’d give this subject a go as my first hand experience from my job will hopefully get me through the subject. I’m excited to be doing my first prac at the start of next year and am keen to see what other schools outside my local area are doing with technology in the classroom.

Cheers

Nick